Prison populations have increased dramatically in recent years, resulting in overcrowded, dangerous environments that are difficult to monitor and control.
Personnel involved in operating a prison facility, including officers, administrators and other persons providing inmate care and supervision, are typically understaffed and overworked, and generally find it difficult to perform their responsibilities in a timely and competent manner. As a result, inmates may find it easier to escape during periods when they are less closely observed by correctional officers or other personnel who are distracted from their supervisory duties, and escapes sometimes go unnoticed for an undesirable length of time. Further, inmate assaults have increased out of proportion to the prison population, and are difficult to control. Excessive time is required to simply keep count of the prison population, thereby curtailing the ability to provide rehabilitative and other beneficial programs for the inmate population.
Correctional institutions typically contain exercise facilities, lavatories, showers, classrooms, libraries, dining halls, workshops, cellblocks or housing units, and the like, where inmates sleep and/or spend at least a portion of each day. Any given inmate may spend time in more than one of these facilities during a twenty-four hour period. It is thus very difficult and time consuming to continually monitor the location within the correctional facility of any given inmate. And yet, such monitoring is essential if proper control over the inmate population is to be maintained.
Under current procedures, several inmate counts are taken each day. These counts are taken manually, and preferably at least two of the prison staff are assigned for counting each group of inmates. The system of counts in a typical correctional facility includes: formal counts, taken at predetermined intervals at set times and locations during each twenty-four period in accordance with the policies and procedures of the correctional facility; informal counts, in which an authorized staff member may initiate an unscheduled count of inmates under their supervision to make sure that all inmates are present who are assigned to that staff member; and emergency counts, taken at times other than those specified for regularly scheduled formal counts, requiring the same general criteria as for a formal count, and typically taken when there is reason to believe that an escape may have occurred, or following a major disturbance, or the like.
The count system for any correctional facility should provide for at least four formal counts in each twenty-four hour period, and should be timed to facilitate the performance of routine inmate functions and to cause as little interference as possible with leisure and work programs and the like. While a formal count, in particular, is being taken, there should be no movement of inmates, nor should the person taking the count have his attention distracted from the count. Two staff persons should always take any count made in a dormitory or open type housing unit, and care must be taken to insure that an actual person, as opposed to a dummy, is being counted. When taking counts at night, it is necessary to use a flashlight, and care should be taken in its use to avoid waking or unnecessarily distracting an inmate, while at the same time adequate light must be provided to insure that a dummy is not being counted.
In a medium security prison with an inmate population of 500, there may typically be four cellblocks of seventy-five inmates each, and four dormitories of fifty inmates each. The 300 inmates in the cellblocks require a minimum of four officers to take a count, and the 200 inmates in the dormitories require a minimum of eight officers to take a count. In addition, there are required two control room officers, one shift commander, one administrative captain and one administrative clerk.
The basic requirement of keeping count of the inmates in a correctional facility can thus be seen to require the time and services of a large number of staff personnel, and also is disruptive of other facility functions, including those that are rehabilitative, or otherwise beneficial to the inmates and/or staff.
Even when an accurate count is taken of the number of inmates present, the location within the facility of any given inmate must be determined by actual visual observation of that inmate.
Additionally, it is very difficult or even impossible with current staffing levels to personally monitor each inmate closely enough to avoid assaults among inmates, or to assure the safety of staff personnel moving among the inmate population.
Many inmates, and sometimes a correctional officer or other staff member, are killed or injured each year from assaults by other inmates. One inmate being attacked by another has very little chance of receiving help, since his only means of summoning help is by shouting or otherwise attempting to attract attention. An inmate's call for help is not always heard, however, because of the noisy environment. In many cases, it may become known or suspected that one inmate plans an assault on another inmate before the assault actually occurs. In such situations, there is little that the staff can do except warn the individuals to stay away from one another, and attempt to watch them more closely in an effort to keep them separated, or to assign the potential victim to protective custody status.
A staff member needing help generally must call out for assistance, or rely upon a bulky two-way radio, or a "man down" alarm. A call for help by a staff member does not have much more chance of being heard than that of an inmate, and a two-way radio may be difficult or impossible to use, depending upon the circumstances.
Inmate assaults frequently lead to lawsuits against relevant state agencies, adding significantly to the cost of operating correctional facilities. For instance, 721 inmate lawsuits were filed during 1984 against the Department of Corrections in the state of Washington. During 1989-1990, there were 2,200 new lawsuits filed.
In addition to the major concerns of detention and safety, discussed above, inmates of correctional facilities are generally not permitted to carry money. Accordingly, they are not able to access various vending devices, or commissaries and the like. Further, if they desire special information, such as time to parole, etc., they must approach a staff member and make inquiries. This information is not always readily available, and personal time and effort is required from staff members in order to deliver the requested information, service or goods to the inmate.
Examples of prior art devices for monitoring personnel are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,478,344 (Schwitzgebel), 4,814,751 (Hawkins, et. al.), 4,885,571 (Pauley, et. al.) and 4,952,913 (Pauley, et. al.).
Schwitzgebel teaches a system in which the individual being monitored carries a portable apparatus including a wrist-mounted code generator unit and a separate transceiver unit. The transceiver unit transmits a signal that is modulated by the wrist unit, and this modulated signal is detected by a central processing station, which may include directional antennas. The apparatus associated with each individual may transmit a code unique to that individual, and the central processor interrogates each portable apparatus to determine the location and identity of the individual. This system requires that the apparatus carried by the individual have a relatively powerful energy source, i.e., battery. The portable apparatus also includes a manual alarm that may be activated by the individual.
Hawkins, et. al. teach a system in which each individual carries a transmitter that emits a signal having a distinctive frequency. Receiving antenna elements are positioned at selected locations in the facility for detecting the signals emitted by the transmitter units, and a scanning radio receiver is connected with the antenna system. If an individual moves beyond a predetermined range from the antennas, an alarm is given. If an alarm signal is generated, a second, directional receiver tracks the location of the individual. This system also requires that each portable unit have a relatively strong power supply, since it is continuously transmitting a signal.
The Pauley, et. al. patents both disclose systems for monitoring the presence or absence of an individual at a particular location. This system is used, for example, to determine whether a person under house arrest is present at his designated location. The individual being monitored carries a transmitter which periodically emits a signal to a field monitoring device located at the monitoring location. The field monitoring device, in turn, sends a signal to a central control station. The transmitter or tag carried by the individual includes means for detecting when an attempt is made to remove the tag from the person being monitored.
None of the prior art systems known to applicant teach a method of accurately and quickly obtaining a count of the inhabitants of the institution, while simultaneously being able to locate and identify the individuals, and in which each individual wears means by which that individual can give an alarm in an emergency, and which gives that individual access to vending systems and, further, that can warn the individual of the approach of other individuals.
There is thus need for a simple, economical and effective monitoring system that can count, locate and identify the inhabitants of an institution, while at the same time provide individuals with means for giving an alarm in an emergency, and which gives access to vending systems and can warn individuals of impending danger.